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Government agencies want more guidance on how to safely and smartly adopt new mobile technology programs, such as bring-your-own-device plans, an interagency group of chief information officers said. Without more central guidance on security, policy and legal considerations, agencies adopting BYOD policies, building internal app stores and launching other mobile projects may waste money and take on unnecessary risks, according to the report from the Federal CIO Council. Agencies are also hampered by the lack of governmentwide contract vehicles for many mobile devices, the report said.

The report recommended that officials:

• Develop more complex standards for how government information should be handled on smartphones and tablets.
• Create a governmentwide team to evaluate the legal, technical and privacy implications of federal employees using non-government provided mobile devices.
• Create either agency-wide or governmentwide guidance for procuring mobile devices.
• Continue working on guidance to ensure government information is sufficiently encrypted on mobile devices and that the people using those devices are sufficiently authenticated.

What we Google is a pretty good mark these days of who we are -- what intrigues us, moves us, what we care about. In its end-of-year review, Google builds a story of 2012 out of the clues of a trillion searches, and tells that story in a sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes heartwarming.

Social networking has spread around the world with remarkable speed. In countries such as Britain, the United States, Russia, the Czech Republic and Spain, about half of all adults now use Facebook and similar websites. These sites are also popular in many lower-income nations, where, once people have access to the internet, they tend to use it for social networking.

Meanwhile, cell phones have become nearly ubiquitous throughout much of the world, and people are using them in a variety of ways, including texting and taking pictures. Smart phones are also increasingly common – roughly half in Britain, the U.S., and Japan have one. Globally, most smart phone users say they visit social networking sites on their phone, while many get job, consumer, and political information. Technologies like these are especially popular among the young and well educated. In almost every country polled, people under age 30 and those with a college education are more likely to engage in social networking and to use a smart phone. These are among the key findings from a 21-nation survey conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project from March 17-April 20. The survey also finds that global publics are sharing their views online about a variety of topics, especially popular culture. Across 20 of the nations polled (Pakistan is excluded from this calculation due to the small number of social networking users), a median of 67% of social networkers say they use these sites to share opinions about music and movies. Significant numbers also post their views on community issues, sports and politics. Fewer give their opinions about religion.

Let's be clear: Microsoft's 3-D motion-sensing, depth-sensing, gesture-aware camera system Kinect is a breakthrough in gaming control. But the actual clever stuff inside Kinect is made by a company called PrimeSense, and this company has just said it's got a wholly new sensor that's better, and yet small enough to fit inside a smartphone.

This means it has the potential to be a breakthrough in controlling anything. The new system is called Capri, and though it's due for an official unveiling at the CES event in January, PrimeSense has revealed that it's about ten times smaller than the current generation of 3-D sensors, and the company suggests it's "certainly the smallest 3D sensor in the world." Along with the size reduction, Capri brings better algorithms and a lower cost. That means PrimeSense imagines it will be the sort of addition that would go into PCs, tablets, laptops, mobile phones, TVs, consumer robotics, and so on. The implications of this are potentially huge, because we know developers are only just coming to grips with how clever they can be using Kinect as a PC peripheral.